Diary of an estate agent: barn drama

Is that Charlie Dimmock lurking behind the azaleas? Tim Trembath of Trembath Welch, Great Dunmow, Essex

BACK from holiday to find my desk disappointingly not submerged under a sea of paper: in a fickle market, sales are taking a long time to go through. But there's still huge demand for unconverted barns.

An irate client, a farmer, calls to ban viewings without appointment. He's selling two barns, built around 1550 on a pre-Norman moated site, for £300,000 each. More than 20 people turned up on Sunday and three families got together to play football on the lawn, just as if it were the works' day out. He nearly decked a very wealthy man who arrived saying how much he hated farmers and the way they "rape" the countryside.

Tuesday

We value a rambling bungalow in one acre that will be ideal for auction in late spring. Planners permitting, the £200,000 bungalow will probably be replaced by a £600,000 modern "country home".

Then I visit a four-bedroom barn conversion nearing completion: the builder's attention to detail has resulted in a really first-class job, but of course there is a price to match - £600,000.

Wednesday

I carry out a survey for a company that is relocating an employee and needs to know the value of her two-bedroom home. The interior is immaculate - but the unexpected wow is walking into the garden. It is so beautifully (and expensively) landscaped that I half expect Charlie Dimmock and crew to jump out from behind a bush.

But the house is a modern mid-terrace in an ordinary area - all around, there are unkempt gardens, broken front steps and litter in the streets. Sadly, I have to mark down her surveyor's valuation by £10,000, to £132,500.

Thursday

A client rings to discuss a survey I carried out two weeks ago: their building society's surveyor has apparently found several problems that need to be inspected by a structural engineer.

I dash to the property in a hot lather, wondering what on earth I could have missed, but the structural engineer finds nothing either. The building society surveyor has, it seems, been covering his back in spectacular fashion. My clients decide to proceed.

Then I survey a small cottage in Colchester for a client who owns several rental properties. These Edwardian terraces near the hospital - at the opposite end of town from the army barracks - are still a sound investment.

Friday

My eye test says I need new glasses. I knew there was a problem when I failed to recognise friends and clients waving to me from their cars - until they'd driven past.

In the afternoon I have a meeting with a farming family and their accountant to discuss inheritance tax. The parents want all their offspring to get a fair share of the spoils. But agricultural incomes have collapsed, while property values remain high, and this makes it very tough for any child who wants to remain in farming to buy out his or her siblings.

As the week draws to a close, I have to break it to our farmer with the historic barns that the phone is ringing off the hook for appointments to view. Showing people round was fun to start with but his smile is wearing very thin now.